The Open Arms of the Sea
by Lea of Mirkwood
Summary: [Peter Pan] - WendyHook. Hook makes one final offer to persuade Wendy to become Red-Handed Jill. Really not as naughty as it sounds.


The Open Arms of the Sea  
  
Lea of Mirkwood  
  
PG  
  
I own nothing  
  
~*~  
  
So rare, you're like the fragrance of blossoms fair   
  
Sweet as a breath of air fresh with the morning dew  
  
Andy Williams - So Rare  
  
~*~  
  
Telling stories about Hook somehow made Wendy feel closer to him. As if she knew him intimately. Wendy knew perfectly well this was a dangerous feeling, since even in her stories Hook was a horrid, horrid man who killed gleefully, but he was so much a part of her young heart that to untangle the web of Hook from her soul would take years and might break some of the innocence of it. But, Wendy knew sensibly, it would happen.  
  
Someday the coldness of his piercing blue eyes would fade, those eyes she had described almost weekly to her adoring brothers in their nursery that seemed so far away that she began to forget the color of their walls. Someday she would forget the way the eyes drew her in, young as she was, until she felt home for a moment. Even as Wendy spent time around her darling, wonderful Peter she felt the weight of growing up on her thin little shoulders, and knew the exotic home that Captain James Hook brought her would fade until it was forgotten. Little Peter was always in her thoughts, like the sprite that he was flitting around her mind and wrapping vines around her heart that wouldn't detach. Every moment her thoughts drifted to the first time she laid eyes on the wicked Captain was like a knife twisting in her chest, betraying her dearest Peter.  
  
So it was no surprise that when she was given the opportunity to speak to Captain Hook and become a pirate, she considered it heartily. Red-Handed Jill. The name sounded different and more dangerous when uttered by Hook and less like little Wendy playing make-believe in the safety of bed under the watchful eye of Nana.  
  
The pirates took her home, of course, but what none of the rest of them knew, what Peter never knew, what no one else knew, was that Hook came back to try and persuade her once more to be the pirate's storyteller.  
  
~*~  
  
Wendy laid her head back down upon the soft leaves she slept on and curled one small arm under her head. Her soft eyes closed and she began to dream of Peter. Not in any way her mother could have been ashamed of, she didn't think of kisses or the gentle curl of the ends of Peter's hair, but she dreamed of seeing him fly in and out of the tree trunks that suddenly became the masts of the pirate's ship and then the chimneys in London - home! - and then Neverland again. As Peter somersaulted in midair Wendy heard the distant sound of the doorknocker and sat up straight, forcing herself from her dreams.  
  
"Yes?" called Wendy, her hand flying up to her chest as she calmed her breathing. "Who is it?"  
  
The reply came as smooth and as cool as the crisp feeling of her father's satin waistcoat when she gave him a hug in the morning. "Captain Hook, Lady Wendy."  
  
Wendy's mouth turned into a little pink O. "Come in."  
  
The green and brown door slowly opened and Hook ducked inside slowly, the rich velvety red of his coat and plumed hat like a stranger in a new land. He stood up and bumped his hat against the ceiling awkwardly. Grimacing, he shifted to begin to sit.  
  
"Oh!" cried Wendy in distress and halfway sat up to help him. "I'm terribly sorry. It's a small house, you see, and..." she trailed off as Hook knelt on the floor. Kneeling now, Hook was eye-to-eye with the tiny Wendy bird. He smiled, a dashing, charming smile.  
  
"I came to make one last offer," he said politely, taking off his hat like a gentleman.  
  
"Yes?" asked Wendy, smoothing her nightgown over her knees nervously, feeling every bit like a dirty child next to this grown-up corsair she knew so well.  
  
"If you were to accept my offer of piracy and storytelling," said Hook slowly and cocked his head to the side while the tip of his hook flashed silver in the moonlight filtered by the leafy roof as he ran it over the brim of his hat, "you could have a special bunk to the side of the captain's quarters and be able to command the men to your will."  
  
Wendy gasped. "But that would be..." she stammered and her hands flew to cover her mouth, "that would make me first mate, wouldn't it?"  
  
"Indeed."  
  
"Oh!" whispered Wendy now, her voice full of reverent longing. "Oh!" She fell silent, considering. "But don't you have a first mate?"  
  
Hook lifted his shoulders carelessly. "He no longer inhabits his former room. In fact, you could say he inhabits nowhere."  
  
"He's dead, you mean?"  
  
Hook inclined his head, which could mean yes or I'm-not-going-to-tell-you. "His position is, shall we say, available at the moment."  
  
"What would I do?" asked Wendy with all the innocence her young soul had, not understanding the depth of wickedness this one man sometimes cradled in his arms like a child as he nursed his bitter, lonely spirit into becoming a hollow shell.  
  
"Dine with me," said Hook calmly, "and sometimes help select the...hook of the day," he added, raising said hook in the air between them. Wendy stared at it for a moment.  
  
"I shall think about it," she said, and then placed a tiny pale hand on the top of the hook where it wasn't sharp. "I shall think about it. May I give you my answer later?"  
  
"Certainly," said Hook with a smile as he watched Wendy's hand. "I don't expect it right away."  
  
Without another heartbeat passing, Wendy, slowly forced Hook's arm away and leaned towards him, placing a soft kiss on his mouth. It was a child's kiss, an innocent touch like the kiss a daughter gave to a father, but Wendy meant it to mean sincerity. She was entranced by Hook. The soft scrape of Hook's hook as it brushed against Wendy's hair and down her shoulder brought Wendy back to reality for a moment, and she pulled away so fast the hook caught in her skin and left a thin red line as it ripped a line in the collar of her nightgown. Hook stared at the scratch for a few breathless moments as Wendy's heart pounded with Peter, Peter, betraying Peter who could not love her back.  
  
"I will await your answer," said Hook suddenly and left before Wendy could say another thing, knowing it would hurt more.  
  
~*~  
  
Hook was old. Alone. Done for. And Wendy forgot him.  
  
Except some times, when she looked into her father's gentle blue eyes she saw the sharpness that called into memory the charming, polite killer.  
  
Except some times, when she slept she expected the knock and the pirate to come through her door.  
  
Except.  
  
~*~ 


End file.
